In the case of the deaths of two black men Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York at the hands of police officers, we had grand juries fail to indict them and thus avoid having the cases go to trial. It is not for nothing that it is asserted that any competent prosecutor could, if they wished, indict a ham sandwich, so the lack of indictments, coupled with the extremely unusual situation in both cases in which the prosecutor allowed the officers to give unchallenged testimony in their defense suggests that the fix was in and the prosecutor was using the grand jury to avoid taking personal responsibility for the decision.
Prosecutors tend to be highly biased in favor of police because they work closely with them on cases and depend upon their cooperation, which sets up an inherent conflict of interest. Is it any surprise then that grand juries indict in almost 100% of the cases except when the target is a police officer, when the rate drops to almost zero? Furthermore, since the police are the ones who write up the crime reports, many of those are slanted to paint their own actions in a good light. As a result, hundreds of events in which police officers are involved in homicides do not get even get recorded in national statistics, hiding the true nature of the problem.
In an interview with NPR Noel Leader, who worked for 20 years in the New York police department and is the founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, explained what is wrong with the system and how it has to be changed.
Well, because of the incestuous relationship between the district attorney’s office and the police – you know, they work hand-in-hand every day on every – practically every criminal case. Police officers are evolved – involved, and they work hand-in-hand with the district attorney. Therefore, our organization, which is comprised of police officers, states that in these controversial police shootings, the district attorney should be removed because of the incestuous relationship. And we should have a special prosecutor investigate these shootings. Over the years – and in particular, these two latest incidents in Missouri and New York City – you see where the district attorney, who can indict a ham sandwich whenever they want to indict a ham sandwich, failed to get an indictment in two cases that are very much problematic. And we believe because of the relationship, there’s a lack of will to get indictments of police officers because of their close, close, very close relationship.
The shooting of 12-year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland and the decision by the local prosecutor to go to the grand jury suggests that he too was seeking this escape route. But that strategy was complicated by the release yesterday of a devastating report by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department that investigated the local police after an insane police chase two years ago through the city involving 62 police cars that ended with them pumping 137 bullets into the car of two unarmed black people and killing both, a horrific scene that looked like something out of the film Bonnie and Clyde. The report found that there was use of “excessive and unreasonable force” by the police in over hundreds of cases in a period covering just three years.
“Our review revealed that Cleveland police officers violate basic constitutional precepts in their use of deadly and less lethal force at a rate that is highly significant,” the report said. It found use of force by Cleveland police was at times “chaotic and dangerous”, even going so far as to suggest victims of crime and innocent bystanders should fear for their lives in the presence of police.
You can read more about what the is being describes as the “Shocking, Systemic Brutality, Incompetence In Cleveland Police Department” here.
This report will come as no surprise to the poor and people of color in Cleveland, the people who have been most at the receiving end of this treatment, though it might shock those who more affluent people who view the police as their protectors. In the case of the Tamir Rice shooting, we already have reports that Timothy Loehmann, the police officer who shot him, was thought to be unstable and incompetent by a previous employer in a different police department. The other officer Frank Garmback who drove the vehicle had an excessive force suit against him settled for $100,000. Furthermore, even experts who might be sympathetic to the police are raising the same serious concerns as I did about how they acted in this case.
Three experts in police procedures find fault with the Cleveland police officers involved in the Nov. 22 fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice for pulling their cruiser so close to someone whom they believed was armed.
The experts, contacted Tuesday by Northeast Ohio Media Group, each concluded from viewing surveillance video of the shooting that the officers should have maintained a greater distance between their cruiser and Tamir.
“The tactics were very poor,” said David Thomas, senior research fellow for the Police Foundation. “If the driver would have stopped a distance away so that the primary officer wasn’t right there to get involved in shooting, it may have played out differently.”
Surveillance footage shows a cruiser driven by sixth-year officer Frank Garmback cut across the grass in front of a gazebo at a West Side Cleveland park and roll within feet of Tamir, and first-year officer Timothy Loehmann shooting Tamir within seconds from an open passenger door.
In the wake of the killing of Eric Garner in New York, we now have the familiar spectacle of authorities calling for more training of police officers. While more training is a good thing, one cannot help but suspect that it might also serve as a stalling tactic to pacify the restless community and mask the serious problem of racism. Leader thinks so.
Well, you know, it’s always amusing for me to hear commissioners throughout the country talk about training after we have a horrific incident. New York City Police Department’s one of the best-trained departments in the world, I would go to say. A lot of departments come to New York to receive training. So it’s always comical for me to hear the police commissioner or the mayor to talk about training.
Training is not the problem. We have a problem of racism within law enforcement as it relates to communities of color. You know, some of these horrific incidents only occur in communities of color. And officers that get trained in the police academy are dispersed throughout the city. How come it’s not happening everywhere?
Given this combination of events and the resulting close scrutiny that the Cleveland legal system is going to be under and the anger in the community and the nation as a whole about excessive use of force by police, it is going to make it very difficult for the Cleveland prosecutor to avoid indicting the police in this case. I shudder to think of what might happen if they do.
??? Isn’t that up to the grand jury and prosecutor? Are you suggesting that some higher-ups are going to try to convince the prosecutor to actually indict the police officer? I find that difficult to believe.
Prosecutors can not only indict a ham sandwich, they can convict one, as well. They can threaten to turn a ham sandwich into a jelly sandwich unless the ham sandwich agrees to a plea bargain.
“In the wake of the killing of Eric Garner in New York, we now have the familiar spectacle of authorities calling for more training of police officers.”
Sensitivity training for stormtroopers. What could go wrong with that idea?
More training can’t hurt, but I’m not sure “reform” is the answer. Maybe it’s time to get rid of the stormtroopers altogether?
Perish the thought.
So, Sean, you’re advocating abolition of police departments? You really think that’s a better answer than what you lazily brush off as “reform?”
Also, NPR just did a rather extensive and in-depth (for a radio show at least) story about a police department whose performance was, in fact, greatly improved by re-training and re-prioritization. So before you brush off a solution, you might want to educate yourself just a little.
After all that concern trolling over police brutality, strawmanning and vitriol over multiple threads, you out yourself as a defender of the cops. Why am I not surprised? Holier-than-thou, presumption of guilt “liberals” are every bit as authoritarian as law and order wingnuts. The difference is wingnuts don’t pretend to give a fuck about police brutality, and they will allow a man can be innocent until proven guilty.
Middle class liberals want the cops out there keeping their social “inferiors” off their doorstep as much as the wingnuts. Just be sensitive to minority concerns when you slam their heads against the wall, but do what you like to the “white trash”; they deserve it. They don’t want to disband the capitalist death star or the police state that serves it; they just want it to be kinder and gentler. Maybe appoint a black death star commander like Obama, and make sure we only destroy planets legally and with full interplanetary consensus.
Liberals want to keep the cops, but they are not prepared to take moral responsibility for handing our guns and badges to an army of sadistic bullies who join the force precisely so they can go out and abuse people at will.
Liberal “reform” is a scam. While the country pole vaults to the right, liberals insist on taking “baby steps” towards the center, while the center itself keeps drifting rightward as well. Liberals consider this to be “progress.” Thus we have a black, “liberal” Democratic president who is far to the right of Reagan, and who makes Barry Goldwater look like a flaming commie pinko leftist.
Fundamental to the “reformist” stance is the idea that there is something about the capitalist system and its mechanisms of control and extortion that is worth preserving, thus we should not dismantle it, but just tweak it a bit here and there to make it more user-friendly. Well, we can see where that approach has landed us. We now have a de facto police state that is moving relentlessly in the direction of full blown fascism, and anyone who thinks that re-educating the stomtroopers is going to slow that train needs to get a grip.
Now, don’t get me wrong (I am certain you will…deliberately). Reform movements have made great and meaningful improvements to society…in the past. So let’s nip that incoming strawman in the bud. But those improvements are all under threat now, and if you want to retain and improve upon them, defending a system that has declared war on them as well as its citizens doesn’t strike me as being a useful approach. There is no such thing as a kinder, gentler fascism.
After all that concern trolling over police brutality, strawmanning and vitriol over multiple threads, you out yourself as a defender of the cops. Why am I not surprised? Holier-than-thou, presumption of guilt “liberals” are every bit as authoritarian as law and order wingnuts. The difference is wingnuts don’t pretend to give a fuck about police brutality, and they will allow a man can be innocent until proven guilty.
Technical question: if you string together four sentences, neither of which follows from its predecessor, is that four non-sequiturs, or just three? What if one of those sentences contains a non-sequitur between its two halves?
Middle class liberals want the cops out there keeping their social “inferiors” off their doorstep as much as the wingnuts. Just be sensitive to minority concerns when you slam their heads against the wall…
Well, yeah, we want the cops to fight crime without trampling anyone’s legal rights. People in the lower classes want the same thing. You got a problem with that?
…but do what you like to the “white trash”
Quote ANYONE saying anything remotely like that, or admit you’re full of shit.
Liberals want to keep the cops, but they are not prepared to take moral responsibility for handing our guns and badges to an army of sadistic bullies who join the force precisely so they can go out and abuse people at will.
Read some history, moron — we liberals have been the ones pushing for greater police restraint and accountability, by means of certain Federal laws and court rulings — which conservatives and libertarians have been consistently fighting to dismantle. Your allegation looks especially laughable coming AFTER the US Justice Department (headed by an Obama appointee) stepped in to knock the local cops into shape.
Fundamental to the “reformist” stance is the idea that there is something about the capitalist system and its mechanisms of control and extortion that is worth preserving, thus we should not dismantle it, but just tweak it a bit here and there to make it more user-friendly.
So what’s your alternative? Violent Communist revolution? I’ve never known that to give us better cops. And violent fascist revolution is even worse.
Reform movements have made great and meaningful improvements to society…in the past.
So what’s wrong with trying it again?
Seriously, Sean, you’re not even coherent anymore. Go to bed.
Wow, Sean really jumped off the deep end. Suddenly, demanding that police do their job properly and respect the rights of citizens is supposed to imply the abolition of the idea of law enforcement officers?
I don’t think I’ve ever known “Defender of the cops” to imply “Defender of the concept of cops.” Do you also hate people who defend the concept of prosecutors?
Actually, I know a couple of decent people in law enforcement. Painting them all as sadistic bullies, (regardless if entire departments of them are) is completely unfair. But I guess you’ll just dismiss me as a “defender of cops” and “authoritarian” because I actually want police to do good work: get people treatment, protect against crimes, and de-escalate dangerous situations. Police are supposed to be respectful and trustworthy (and no that doesn’t mean blind trust). They’re supposed to actually protect and enhance communities, not oppress them.
Thanks for that exchange of pro-cop PR bullshit. The police are not there to protect us. They are there to protect the interests of the 1 percent. Even if we allow that they are sometimes sincere, the best the cops can do in most cases is react to crimes after they have occurred. You have to get robbed, raped or murdered first before they do anything, and good look getting them to do anything after.
In the working class white communities I have lived in there is an ethic against calling the cops except where no alternative exists. This is because the cops are perceived as a major nuisance at best (meter maids with guns) and the enemy at worst (beat you, kill you or take your freedom away for nothing). Calling the cops rarely results in any good, but can take minor situations that people usually handle themselves and turn them into life-destroying events through their arrogance and heavy-handedness. That is what happened to Tamir Rice. Some asshole who thinks the cops are there to help called them in to deal with a 12-year-old boy playing with a fucking toy gun.
The idea of the cops de-escalating situations is laughable. That worked real good in Ferguson, didn’t it?
People have been talking about police reform for decades and yet, the police are more heavily armed and abusive then ever. Obama has been personally involved with as many if not more assassinations in his term then all the police in the country combined. He has waged a war on civil liberties and has strengthened the security/surveillance state at every turn, and now you imagine he wishes to reform the cops by giving them body cams? Here’s another, more realistic view:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/12/white-house-abuses-ferguson-to-promote-more-surveillance-.html
If you guys believe in Obama and the cops then I am wasting my time debating you. I’m done.